Are corporate media banging the war drums in 2014 just like they did in 2003? USA Today promotes a poll that they say shows the public wants a more 'muscular' foreign policy. But is that really the message the public is sending? Plus the New York Times remembers a Chris Christie foreign policy 'gaffe'– saying something accurate about the occupation of the West Bank.

The New York Times reports that Chris Christie is consulting with the likes of Henry Kissinger and Condoleezza Rice to get past a previous foreign policy problem: saying something completely accurate about Israel.

This week on FAIR TV: Media still hesitate to talk about climate change when covering extreme weather like the typhoon that just ravaged the Philippines. Chris Christie is "magical," says one pundit–we'll tell you what his trick is. And nuclear negotiations don't make media coverage of Iran any better.

Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie isn't running for president after all. This is bad news for the journalists who seemed so eager to promote his candidacy, but also for establishment pundits like New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, who thought a Christie/Obama contest would have been a victory for…. wait for it… centrism! He writes today (10/5/11): Had Christie–a moderate on gun control, climate change and immigration who has also backed Simpson/Bowles–run and won significant support, he would have forced Obama back to the center. Then, instead of a race between the Democratic left and the Republican right–in which […]

The New York Times had a headline on Saturday that read, "Imagining a Christie Campaign for President." That seems appropriate–if we're talking about how it's the corporate media doing the imagining. On ABC's This Week (10/2/11), Jonathan Karl announced that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's speech at the Reagan Library "was the most electrifying event of the campaign so far." That speech was treated like a big event on the NBC Nightly News (9/28/11), with anchor Brian Williams saying up front that Christie is "the man whose every word is being watched and listened to so very carefully." Reporter Chuck […]

ABC This Week (9/25/11): CHRISTINE AMANPOUR: And coming up, Rick Perry on the ropes. PERRY: Yep, there may be slicker candidates and there may be smoother debaters, but I know what I believe in, and I'm going to stand on that belief every day. I will guide this country with a deep, deep rudder. AMANPOUR: Can the new frontrunner come back from a shaky debate performance? Or is Chris Christie waiting in the wings to steal his thunder? New York Times (9/26/11): After Perry's Debate Showing, Eyes Turn Toward Christie Washington Post (9/26/11): Texas Gov. Rick Perry's recent stumbles–his rambling […]

Gabriel Sherman's new piece in New York magazine (5/22/11) about Roger Ailes and Fox News Channel offers more indications that whatgoes on behind the scenesat Fox is more or less what you'd expect, given the channel's obvious on-air slant. The person hired to run the news division has some peculiar ideas about news: Bill Sammon, a former Washington Times correspondent, angered Fox's political reporters, who saw him pushing coverage further to the right than they were comfortable with. Days after Obama's inauguration, an ice storm caused major damage throughout the Midwest. At an editorial meeting in the D.C. bureau, Sammon […]

"Teachers Wonder, Why the Heapings of Scorn?" is the headline of a front-page New York Times piece today (3/3/11). The article by Trip Gabriel reports, "Education experts say teachers have rarely been the targets of such scorn from politicians and voters." Politicians, sure, but what's the evidence that voters–i.e., the public–have been heaping scorn on teachers? Gabriel offers nothing to substantiate this claim other than references to "online comments and placards of counterdemonstrators"–quoting blog commenters as evidence of the national mood has got to stop, guys–and the assertion that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's teacher-bashing has made him a "national […]